MONTESSORI AND PLAY

Laura Flores Shaw, MS

Montessori Student, Age 10

KEY POINTS

 Though articles abound in the media extolling the virtues of play on children’s cognitive
development while demonizing work,1 these articles rarely define play, and they only seem to
define work as the didactic instruction found in conventional schools.

 Within the research literature, there is the overall construct of playful learning, which is broken
down into free play and guided play.2 The latter benefits children’s learning while the former
does not.6

 Pretend play does not foster creativity, better problem solving, and higher intelligence; nor does
it foster better social and emotional competencies.6

 Dr. Maria Montessori initially thought children needed toys, but the children showed her
otherwise, so she removed them from the environment.11

 An examination of the broad playful learning construct and Montessori education found that the
two have much in common: both have an overarching structure, free choice, peer interaction,
materials specific to the developmental stage, a lack of extrinsic rewards, and just plain fun.14
These elements are also present during pretend play.6

 The dichotomy of play versus work is false, as it fails to consider how the two actually overlap.16

Laura Flores Shaw holds bachelors and masters degrees in psychology and is currently working towards a doctorate
in education with a specialization in mind, brain, and teaching at Johns Hopkins University School of Education. She is
the founder of White Paper Press, and she writes and speaks internationally about education, brain development, and
parenting.

The author gratefully acknowledges the contributions of Kay Baker, Jacqueline Cossentino, Annette Haines, and
Mauricio Flores to this article.

MONTESSORI AND
PLAY
Laura Flores Shaw, MS
Had…children chosen instead to play with
toys, a very different educational system
would have been developed.
Angeline Lillard, PhD
Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius
When I was the head of a Montessori school
many years ago, a prospective parent who
came to tour the school greeted me by saying,
“I’m only here because my husband went to a
Montessori school as a child, and he insisted I
visit. But I don’t believe in ‘work’ for children. I
believe in ‘play.’”
Needless to say the meeting did not go well.
Her assumption that work is bad while play is
good for children kept her from seeing what
was really happening in the classroom. But who
can blame her? Articles abound in the media
extolling the virtues of play on children’s
1
cognitive development while demonizing work.
What no one seems to notice, however, is that
these articles rarely define play, and they only
seem to define work as the didactic instruction
found in conventional schools. But when we
really examine the constructs of play and work,
we see that there is far more to this picture than
“play is good” and “work is bad” for young
children – especially within a Montessori
context. In fact, we find that the dichotomy of
work and play as usually presented in the
mainstream media by well-meaning child
advocates is actually a false one.
WHAT IS PLAY?
Play is a construct that is likely to mean
different things to different people. For parents,
play may bring to mind children frolicking
through fields, hanging from trees, playing in
mud, and generally just doing whatever one
wants. But for researchers who must actually
define their constructs to clarify what they’re
studying, play is more complex than that.
Within the research literature, there is the
overall construct of playful learning, which is
broken down into free play and guided play.2
Free play involves pretending (which is
discussed in detail later), playing with objects
and/or peers, rough-and-tumble play with very
little adult control, and no extrinsic rewards.
Guided play, on the other hand, falls on a
continuum and involves adult guidance that
promotes academic knowledge through
activities that feel like play rather than the I-
want-to-poke-my-own-eyes-out-because-I-
have-to-sit-still-and-listen-to-the-adult form of
didactic instruction. This continuum is also
based on the amount of guidance a teacher
provides. For instance, some teachers may only
provide guidance via specific materials in the
environment, while other teachers may provide
materials and still lead all playful activities. But
there is that wonderful middle ground, as
Fisher, et al. (2011)2 state:
Teachers play a unique role in
guided play experiences. They
can sensitively guide learning,
creating flexible, interest-driven
experiences that encourage
children’s autonomy/control over
the process (p. 343).
Further support for this wonderful middle
ground on the guided play continuum comes
from two meta-analyses conducted in 2011
examining 164 studies of discovery learning.
These analyses showed that unassisted
discovery, as it occurs in free play (wherein the
teacher provides no actual guidance in the
learning process), doesn’t benefit students.
However, guided discovery involving more
teacher scaffolding and feedback (which can
come directly from the materials or other
students and not the teacher) does benefit
3
students.
Overall, play is a broad construct, and what the
research shows is that free play doesn’t benefit
children’s learning. Does that mean children
should not be allowed time for free play? No.
But it does mean that developing a “curriculum”
around free play won’t provide children with
opportunities to practice purposeful
sensorimotor skills that need to become
automatic so that later deeper learning can
occur.4 We can’t just tell children, “Play until
you’re six, but then you need to get down to
business” when we haven’t provided
opportunities for them to gain the sensorimotor
skills necessary for literacy and numeracy.
Instead, we need to provide those opportunities
for learning in a way that feels playful.
Pretend Play
A common concern parents have with respect
to Montessori is that the classrooms lack a
dress-up corner where the children can engage
in pretend play. Montessori children are also
encouraged to use the materials as presented
rather than pretending, for instance, that the
Red Rods (which provide indirect preparation
for mathematics and directly train visual
discrimination of differences in length) are ski
poles. Again, this concern is understandable
due to the plethora of articles claiming that
pretend play fosters creativity, better problem
solving, and higher intelligence.5
However, careful analyses of 40 years worth of
research on pretend play and its purported
benefits shows that “the evidence that pretend
play enhances creativity is not convincing”
(p. 8).6 These analyses also showed that
construction play (such as block building)
correlated with better problem-solving while
pretend play did not (score one for the Pink
Tower!). In fact, when children assign meaning
to an object through pretend play, that meaning
can interfere with understanding the object’s
true meaning and use, suggesting that pretend
play doesn’t improve problem-solving skills.7
Meaning interference is also why we don’t want
the children pretending the Red Rods are ski
poles as this can interfere with their ability to
embody the concept of length.
Finally, while there is a relationship between
pretend play and intelligence, the direction of
that relationship is unclear, so the claim that
pretend play raises intelligence is
unsubstantiated at this point.6
But what about pretend play’s effect on social
and emotional skills? Surely pretending
increases these competencies as children
engage in role-playing games.
It is true that researchers have claimed that
both pretending alone and in a group contribute
to social and emotional competencies because
they allow children to play out their own social
and emotional issues, and they can practice
their negotiation skills.8 But as developmental
psychologist Jerome Kagan points out,
“scientists who study human nature…usually
have a favored purpose in mind before they
begin their work” (p. 4), and for many, play
9
may be a good and necessary purpose for
children. When analyzing the actual studies,
however, they don’t confirm the claims that
pretending contributes to social and emotional
competencies. Overall, the studies show
inconsistent correlations, which shows that a
causal link between pretend play and social and
emotional competencies doesn’t exist.6 (Of
course, correlation is not causation; however, if
a number of studies consistently show
correlational relationships between two
variables in the same direction, then one can
begin to make a case for causation – though
very, very cautiously.)
MONTESSORI AND WORK
Dr. Montessori was fully aware that
psychologists assumed that play was vital to
young children’s development. In a lecture
presented in London in 1946, she stated:
Psychologists have attached
great importance to [play] and
make vague statements – that
children play at this age – that
they develop their character
through play. They also say that
the individuality of the children is
revealed in their play (p.151).10
In fact, as Dr. Montessori explains in The
Secret of Childhood, toys were available to the
children in the first Montessori school, but the
children rarely chose to play with them:
Since they never freely chose
these toys, I realized that in the
life of a child play is perhaps
 something of little importance
which he undertakes for lack of
something better to do. A child
feels that he has something of
greater moment to do than to be
engaged in such trivial
occupations. He regards play as
we would regard a game of
chess or bridge. These are
pleasant occupations for hours
of leisure, but they would
become painful if we were
obliged to pursue them at great
length. When we have some
important business to do, bridge
is forgotten. And since a child
always has some important thing
at hand, he is not particularly
11
interested in playing (p. 122).
Unlike other educational reformers who sought
to impose their views and ideologies upon
children, Dr. Montessori developed her method
through systematic observation of children. And
so while she initially thought that children
needed toys just as the psychologists did, the
children showed her otherwise, so she removed
them from the environment.
In fact, there were two other significant
incidents wherein students showed their
preference for Montessori’s purposeful
materials over toys or free play. In both
situations, the children had been locked out of
their classrooms without a teacher. The first
incident occurred at the first Montessori school
in Rome, while the second occurred at the
Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San
Francisco in 1915 where a glass classroom was
set up so people could watch the children work.
During both of these lockout incidents, the
children could have easily chosen to stay
outside and play. Instead, they chose to find a
way into their classrooms so they could work.
And the teachers weren’t even present.12
I have witnessed firsthand children’s preference
for working in their classroom over free play. At
the Montessori school I once administered, we
decided one year to try running a summer camp
for the primary (ages 3-6) students instead of
summer school so we could give the teachers a
long break. To maintain a Montessori
atmosphere during camp, the children could
choose what they wanted to do, and the
activities included crafts, toys, and free play. A
couple of weeks into the summer, we started
hearing from the children and their parents that
the children were bored, and they wanted to go
back to working with the materials in their
classrooms. We never ran another camp.
Ultimately, frolicking in mud and hanging from
trees may seem like the idyllic early childhood
experience, but that’s only because we adults
tend to perceive “work” as a pejorative term as
we spend our work days counting down to the
weekend. Montessori children, however, don’t
because their work brings them higher affect, In her article “Work” Versus “Play” and Early
energy, and intrinsic motivation.13 Work feels Childhood Care, Goodman articulates how the
good. research literature generally distinguishes work
from play, but she also shows their great
In fact, an examination of the broad playful
overlap. First, play is considered to be fun,
learning construct and Montessori education
easy, and pleasurable, while work is unpleasant
found that the two have much in common: both
and effortful. However, play can also require
have an overarching structure, free choice, peer
tremendous effort (as when one plays hard)
interaction, materials specific to the
and work can feel quite pleasurable – especially
developmental stage, a lack of extrinsic
when in a state of flow, wherein you’re fully
rewards, and just plain fun.14 These elements
immersed in what you’re doing and time just
are also present during pretend play.6 This
seems to fly by.17
means that “work” in Montessori classrooms
feels like play to children. In fact, it might even Second, play is about freedom while work is
feel better than pretend play because the about constraint, obliging “us to discipline our
children actually get to use real tools and behavior, follow rules, do what the conventional
materials! standard demands” (p. 185).16 But Goodman
reminds us that children often create rules for
A FALSE DICHOTOMY
their own play activities, as they prefer a sense
When educators advocate for play in early
of order.
childhood education, they are fighting against
Third, play is about process while work is
the adult-centered, didactic instruction found in
focused on outcome. But this distinction is also
conventional schools – and with good reason.
erroneous. Play, like work, has an endpoint,
Forcing children to sit and listen to adults for
and children often evaluate their own products
long periods is not developmentally appropriate.
of play.
I’m not even sure it’s appropriate for adults.15
Finally, play is considered to be intrinsically
But this dichotomy of play and work fails to
motivated and self-chosen, whereas work is
consider how the two actually overlap. As
extrinsically motivated and imposed upon us by
education professor Joan Goodman states:
some outside authority. This means “the very
Absent clear criteria, play comes
same activity . . . can be play or work,”
to be defined by its opposite –
depending upon whether or not the person is
work – and the large overlap is
obliged to do it (p. 186). In a Montessori
lost” (p. 185).16
context, this means that all of the classroom
activities can be considered play since it is the
children who choose what to do!
Because work feels like play within a
Montessori context, those students learn that
“work” means something one wants do. And as
Goodman states:
What seems to be the case,
then, is that the criteria of play
that most distinguishes it from
work – its self-chosen
intrinsically motivated quality – is
also the quality that should
imbue work; work in school and
1. Kohn, D. (2015). Let the kids learn through play.
The New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/17/opinion/sund
ay/let-the-kids-learn-through-play.html?_r=0;
Hamilton, J. (2014). Scientists say child's play
helps build a better brain. NPR.
http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2014/08/06/33636
1277/scientists-say-childs-play-helps-build-a-
better-brain
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Singer, D. G., & Berk, L. (2011). Playing around
in school: Implications for learning and
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Tenenbaum, H. R. (2011). Does discovery-based
instruction enhance learning? Journal of
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Viking; Jordan, N. C., Kaplan, D., Locuniak, M.
N., & Ramineni, C. (2007). Predicting first‐ grade
work in the work place for that
matter (p. 188).16
Hopefully, Montessori students’ experience of
work as self-chosen and intrinsically motivated
will lead them to spend their adult years doing
work that is meaningful to them rather than
spending those years counting the days down
to the weekend.
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